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Calvin's mother
Calvin's mother is a stay-at-home parent who is frequently exasperated by Calvin's antics. On the rare occasions when she is not reacting to Calvin's misbehavior, she seems to enjoy quiet activities, such as gardening and reading. The "daily disciplinarian", she is frequently the one forced to curb Calvin's destructive tendencies; once, she allowed Calvin to smoke a cigarette in order to teach him how unpleasant smoking can be. She also usually seems sympathetic towards her son's relationship with Hobbes, and a few times has found herself speaking to Hobbes as well (although she refers to one instance as "talking to a stuffed animal"). She also seems skeptical and has a different look on her face sometimes like Calvin's father when referring to Hobbes. Calvin's mother is a relatively down-to-earth and sensible person whose attitudes serve primarily as a foil for Calvin's outlandish behavior. According to Bill Watterson, Calvin's mother never received a name because she was only important to the storyline as the mother of Calvin. Watterson has said he regrets the fact that the strip mostly shows her impatient side, but he also tries to show other aspects of her personality by what she is doing when Calvin invades. She keeps a clean house, as she is occasionally found refinishing furniture or painting the walls. She also seems to have an active social life, writing letters and leaving phone messages for friends, even inviting friends over for tea on occasion. Needless to say, Calvin tends to interfere with all these things. Although Calvin's behavior drives his mother crazy (Calvin once quipped "another day, another gray hair for Mom!"), she still loves him very much. When Calvin was lost on a trip to the zoo, she became sick with worry, and was thrilled when his dad brought him back. In one strip, she is shown chasing Calvin shortly before bedtime, tickling him whenever she catches him; in the end, Calvin explains to his father, "Her plan backfired, Dad. Now I'm all wound-up, and Mom's the one who has to be put to bed." She has also stepped in when his father goes too far with his own private jokes, going so far as to say "I know somebody who's going to get a lot of coal in his stocking, buster." She frequently scolds her husband for his sarcasm in dealing with their son. She is sometimes able to calm Calvin down when he is in a bad mood, offering peanut-butter crackers, comic books and other treats to cheer him up. At one point, Calvin became ill and his mother tended to him from the start, beginning in the early morning when Calvin throws up. Though she is almost always shown criticizing Calvin's behavior, it is revealed that she may have been problematic when she was a child as well. In one strip, she tells Calvin, "Someday I hope you have a kid that puts you through what I've gone through," to which Calvin replies, "Yeah, Grandma says that's what she used to tell you". She, like Calvin's father, may have been a party animal in her college days. In one strip Calvin looks through a college yearbook and pictures and asks his father who the “bimbo” in the picture is, to which he responds “that ‘BIMBO’ is your mother!”. This also implies that the two were fellow students and/or juvenile "crushes". Calvin dislikes his mother's cooking, to the extent that she must trick him into eating it, often by telling him that it is something disgusting, such as "monkey heads". She has used Calvin's love for hamburgers as an advantage in one instance; after Calvin takes a single lick of food and flails about on the floor pretending to die, she put him back in his chair and explains to him, lightly frustrated, "Stop it, Calvin. This is hamburger casserole. There's not a thing in there that you don't like." Calvin, awestruck that the meal is hamburger, takes a bite and explains in detail that it is not so bad and that he's suppressing the "gag reflex". His mother, understanding the underlying meaning, patiently replies, "Good. I'm glad this is such a hit." Moving green glops occur in some strips; after Calvin's mom served him oatmeal, Calvin then thrashes around the house chasing after the glop of oatmeal. After Calvin's mom is exasperated by the entire mess in the kitchen, she shouts to Calvin's dad "It's all your fault we didn't have a sweet little girl! Your stupid chromosome, not MINE!" The final panel shows a confused Dad going back to reading his book. A thought bubble above him reads "I just live here". Although she loves him very much, Calvin's mother has sometimes made references in some strips that she wanted a daughter instead of a son; verbally, but mostly emotionally. She has even blamed her husband for giving her the chromosome that gave birth to Calvin (see above), in an angry fit of rage. Calvin himself has even theorized that she thinks of this; after she turned down Calvin's offer of helping around the house with unnecessary carpentry, he stated: "Mom wanted a girl. I just know it." Category:Characters